Background

Since the beginning of the of the end of World War II and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the tension within the country of Turkey has continued to rise. It all leads to Turkey's largest non-Turkish ethnic group, the Kurds, who are concentrated primarily in the eleven provinces in the southeast of the nation with isolated Kurdish villages in other parts of Turkey. Kurds have been migrating to Istanbul for centuries, and since 1960 they have migrated to almost all other urban centers as well. About half of all Kurds worldwide live in Turkey while the remainder lives in adjacent regions of Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Estimates of the number of Kurds in Turkey ranged from 6 million to 12 million in 1995.

Because of the sheer size of the Kurdish population, the Kurds are perceived as the only minority that could pose a threat to the Turkish national unity. Indeed, there has been an active Kurdish Separatist movement in southeastern Turkey since 1984, and this has led many within the Turkish government to become worried. The Turkish government's main strategy for assimilating the Kurds has been language suppression. By doing this, the Turks have attempted to control the spread of the Separatist movement ideas. Yet, despite official attempts over several decades to spread Turkish influences among them, most Kurds have retained their native language.

The Kurds then formed an armed initiation of insurrection in 1984 which is called the Kurdistan Workers' Party. This created an increasing amount of international media to be placed on the Kurds of Iraq which in turned caused the Turkey's political elite to question the increasing number of Kurds. Up until 1991, the Kurdish people in general were denied their rights until one supported bill revoked the ban on the use of the Kurdish language and the possession of materials. By 1995 however, the Kurdish representation in government institutions such as the courts and schools was prohibited.

Although the Kurds comprise a distinct ethnic group, they are divided by class, regional, and secretarian differences similar to those affecting ethnic Turks. Religious divisions often have been a source of conflict among the Kurds. Although the government of Turkey does not collect official religious preferences, scholars estimate that at least two-thirds of the Kurds in Turkey nominally are Sunni Muslims, and that as many as one-third are Shia Muslims of the Alevi sect. Unlike the Sunni Turks, who follow the Hanafi School of Islamic law, the Sunni Kurds follow the Shafii branch. Like their Turkish counterparts, adult male Kurds with religious inclinations tend to join Sufi brotherhoods. The Naksibendi and Kadiri orders, both of which predate the republic, have large Kurdish followings in Turkey. The Nurcular, a brotherhood that came to prominence during the early republican years, also has many Kurdish adherents in Turkey, which like the other brotherhoods, creates additional problems within the Kurdish people and against the Turkish government.